Vertical Gardening – Grow Watermelon

Do you think you need a lot of room to grow watermelon? Consider growing watermelon on a garden trellis. Since watermelon is a vine crop it does well climbing a supporting trellis. Using a sturdy wire fence next to your watermelon plants, the vines naturally begin to climb. You may want to give it some direction and add a few ties to help keep the vines in place.

Growing a vertical garden takes advantage of small spaces. A garden trellis attached to your raised bed garden or small container garden offers a chance to take advantage of growing more in small, tight spaces by growing vertically.

Watermelons can be huge. Before attempting this method, you should check the watermelon seed variety. While this method is perfect for the smaller, personal watermelons, I wouldn’t recommend it for any really large watermelons.

Personal Watermelons

Personal watermelons are miniature versions of the favorite summer fruit. They usually only grow up to 5 pounds.

Characteristics of Personal Watermelons

Sweeter than other varieties

Thinner Rind – more to eat

Usually seedless, although you may find some small edible seeds

Red Flesh

Easy to store and fun to eat

Cirtrullus lanatus is the formal name

Growing Watermelon

I have found that growing watermelon vertically requires a strong garden trellis. We use a wire stock panel and use posts in the ground to support it. Pieces of chain link fencing or a small outside dog kennel made of chain link fence added to your container garden or raised bed garden works nicely.

Whether you use a raised bed garden or the actual ground as a base for your watermelon seeds or plants, we always loosen the soil and add a bit of compost before planting.

Even the little personal watermelons and other larger fruit and vegetable vine crops you want to grow vertically usually need support. The weight of the fruit, a strong wind, a storm or just a weaken attachment could cause the watermelon to fall off, hit the ground and break open. You don’t want that to happen. Think about panty hose or a fishnet stocking to support the growing fruit just to play it safe.

4 Comments

We’ve been so successful in growing our watermelons on a support trellis but how do we know when to pick them? We have quite a few. I picked one last night which pretty much fell off the vine. It was heavy and sounded ripe when I wrapped on it but when I cut it open is was mostly still white. We don’t want to pick anymore until we know weather their ready to be picked. Other sites say to look at their underside where they site in the soil for a creamy yellowish spot but because ours don’t sit in the soil what should we be looking for? HELP?!? Any advise?!?

I would get so frustrated trying to figure out to tell when melons were ripe enough. While visiting one of those little produce roadside stands, I asked the farmer’s wife this same question. Her answer has helped me pick the perfect melon. She told me to lift the melon and gently knock on the melon. Then listen for a hollow sound. The more hollow the sound, the riper the melon. After hearing numerous different methods, this is the best. It takes a little practice, but it is the only method I now use.